A Bad Attitude: A Novel from the Vietnam War

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What Breed of Liberal I Am

My Liberal Identity:

You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, Netroots activist, or Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservative hatriots must be exposed and mocked for every fanatical, puritanical, soulless, paranoid, fact-free, obstructionist ideal for which they stand.

More Quotations

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."

-- Henry Kissinger

"When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist."

-- Archbishop Helder Camara

"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creeds into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics."

-- Robert A. Heinlein

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

-- Voltaire

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."

-- Malcolm X

"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause."

-- Eric Hoffer

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."

-- Sinclair Lewis

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people."

-- Adolph Hitler

"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference -- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

-- President John F. Kennedy

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."

-- Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine, 1615,during the trial of Galileo

"Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely-powerful infinitely-knowledgeable universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life."

-- Andrew Lias

"When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life."

-- Sigmund Freud

"All wonder is the effect of novelty upon ignorance."

-- Samuel Johnson

"Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both."

-- Benjamin Franklin

"It is in no way lawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, or speech, of writing, or of religion, as if they were so many rights that nature has given to man."

-- Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846)

"There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us."

Support Free Speech

Friday, March 28, 2008

The name sounded good, so I checked out the website. Turns out that it's not such a great idea after all -- it was created and organized by a rightwing dickwad and professional MIA "activist" named Ted Sampley.

And Ted Sampley, for those who don't recall, was also an organizer of a similar group called Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry back in 2004, which melded in with the Swift Boat Liars for Bush, and his tactics haven't changed much over the years. He's still issuing his scurrilous broadsides of lies, innuendo and outright slander against those he sees as his enemies. And that list would include, it would appear, pretty much everyone who does not agree with him (I fully expect that I'll show up on it eventually). He also runs a putative veterans website called The US Veteran Dispatch, which is a Pravda-like propaganda display for his toxic lies and inflamed hatred.

One of his most egregious claims about John McCain: That he is a "Manchurian Candidate" who was brainwashed by Soviet operatives in Hanoi and has been a mole climbing the rungs of the American government ever since his return. (I guess all we're waiting for is Angela Lansbury to turn over that queen of diamonds...)

Sampley says that he's a retired Green Beret (even his own bio states that he spent only ten years in the service, with just a few of them as an actual Special Forces member), whose main claim to fame up until 2004 was to pass himself off as a POW-MIA "activist" -- in reality it appears that he was nothing more than a manipulative greedy gadfly engaged in a perniciously dishonest campaign to extract money out of the pockets of both MIA families and the general public, in order to "learn the truth" about the missing Americans from the Vietnam War.

For an incisive look at Sampley's activities, as well as a ton of other information on the whole American POW-MIA issue, check out the worthy MIA Facts site, set up and run by Vietnam veteran Col. Joe Schlatter, who for nine years was assigned to various positions in the DOD POW-MIA office, including a two-year stint as Deputy Director.

Especially see his analysis and refutation of Sampley's outlandishly moronic claim of McCain as a Manchurian Candidate.

America's veterans have enough problems with Rethugs in general, and John McCain in particular, without having to rely on viciously slavering slander-pigs like Ted Sampley and his ilk. Don't fall for it, don't join him, don't send him money -- instead put all your efforts into the election of the Democratic candidate (i.e., Barack Obama) this November.

BTW, Sampley hates Obama as much as he hates McCain, so watch for him to go for his jugular as well, once Obama seals up the nomination.

19 Comments:

pepsiholic
said...

Hey Farns, what is it about the Swiftboat Veterans for truth that you don't like? The fact that they caught Kerry pulling a Hillary?:

Most of the debate between the former shipmates who swear by John Kerry and the group of other Swift boat veterans who are attacking his military record focuses on matters that few of us have the experience or the moral standing to judge. But one issue, having nothing to do with medals, wounds or bravery under fire, goes to the heart of Kerry's qualifications for the presidency and is therefore something that each of us must consider. That is Kerry's apparently fabricated claim that he fought in Cambodia.

It is an assertion he made first, insofar as the written record reveals, in 1979 in a letter to the Boston Herald. Since then he has repeated it on at least eight occasions during Senate debate or in news interviews, most recently to The Post this year (an interview posted on Kerry's Web site). The most dramatic iteration came on the floor of the Senate in 1986, when he made it the centerpiece of a carefully prepared 20-minute oration against aid to the Nicaraguan contras. Kerry argued that contra aid could put the United States on the path to deeper involvement despite denials by the Reagan administration of any such intent. Kerry began by reading out similar denials regarding Vietnam from presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Then he offered this devastating riposte:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

However seared he was, Kerry's spokesmen now say his memory was faulty. When the Swift boat veterans who oppose Kerry presented statements from his commanders and members of his unit denying that his boat entered Cambodia, none of Kerry's shipmates came forward, as they had on other issues, to corroborate his account. Two weeks ago Kerry's spokesmen began to backtrack. First, one campaign aide explained that Kerry had patrolled the Mekong Delta somewhere "between" Cambodia and Vietnam. But there is no between; there is a border. Then another spokesman told reporters that Kerry had been "near Cambodia." But the point of Kerry's 1986 speech was that he personally had taken part in a secret and illegal war in a neutral country. That was only true if he was "in Cambodia," as he had often said he was. If he was merely "near," then his deliberate misstatement falsified the entire speech... But Kerry has repeated his Cambodia tale throughout his adult life. He has claimed that the epiphany he had that Christmas of 1968 was about truthfulness. "One of the things that most struck me about Vietnam was how people were lied to," he explained in a subsequent interview. If -- as seems almost surely the case -- Kerry himself has lied about what he did in Vietnam, and has done so not merely to spice his biography but to influence national policy, then he is surely not the kind of man we want as our president. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27211-2004Aug23.html

If I get your drift pepshitolic, for you it all comes down to resting on the fulcrum of Kerry's "fabricated claim" that he was in Cambodia. Therefore you are admitting that all of the other swiftboat slanders were lies. It ALL hinges on Cambodia.Well, if Kerry was lying about being in Cambodia, then so was his Grand Inquisitor, John O'Neil, who is heard in no less an august setting then the Oval Office, telling no less a personage then the sitting president, One Richard Nixon by name, that HE had been in Cambodia. Around the same time that Kerry "couldn't have been there" since no American troops had been authorized to be there...So pretty much your whole house of cards has collapsed.And your "source" for this, which you thankfully supplied: A member of the rightwing neocon thinktank American Enterprise Institute, and it was not a "news" story, just an opinion, and opinions do not valid sources make. But that hasn't stopped you before, IIRC, sourcing crap like "newsmax" and the likeFarnswroth is right: You ARE an idiot. I can see why he gave up answering you. It's hopeless. I wouldn't do it myself except to give the readers of this blog another little dose of reality when it comes analyzing your sophomoric spew.

Anon--"pepshitholic" and "sophomoric spew" -- now that's funny. I wish I'd thought of them myself.Thanks!--The F-ManPS--Oh, and you will also note that as usual, he can't bring himself to address the main topic of the post. Never has and never will. I think he might have some ADHD issues.

One passage reproduced in Brinkley's book says: "The banks of the [Rach Giang Thanh River] whistled by as we churned out mile after mile at full speed. On my left were occasional open fields that allowed us a clear view into Cambodia. At some points, the border was only fifty yards away and it then would meander out to several hundred or even as much as a thousand yards away, always making one wonder what lay on the other side." His curiosity was never satisfied, because this entry was from Kerry's final mission.

Thers' a fairly large difference between what O'Neil said:I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water. and what Kerry said: ...the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me." O'Neil is saying that he's on the border with Cambodia and Kerry is saying he's smack dab 5 miles inside (getting a hat from a CIA operative) it illegally with fellow American troops.

Hell, even the guys who support Kerry wouldn't say that they were in Cambodia.

You want to retry your pathetic attempt at logic anon?

P.S. I love how liberal whine like little babies that we use accurate sources. Please show me one factual error from that article... oh, that's right, you can't.

Farns, on that main topic of the post, I agree with you. I just noted how once again your hatred for the Swift Boat Veterans for truth came shining through like it has in previous articles you have written.

In my opinion, Kerry did serve with honor in Vietnam. He also pulled a Clinton in getting his purple hearts. With his "wounds", he didn't miss a day of work, didn't get a stitch (that I'm aware of) but I do know that he received at least one band aide.

Oh and Farns I have taken on your main points before... Remember our discussion on Clinton and his "illegal" attack on Bosnia?

So why isn't Chelsea Clinton in uniform? Why isn't she on the Farns list as her parents being a chickenhawk and not sacrificing their daughter to a cause that they believe in? Oh, that's right, Bill and Shillary have a "D" after their name and Farns will forgive all sins when that is the case.

I see what you mean, Farnsworth. He's hopeless. This story from Slate ought to shed some light on it, but he won't accept it either: http://www.slate.com/id/2105529Note that it starts out with "Having pretty much failed at their efforts to disprove the official U.S. Navy account of Kerry's valor in battle as skipper of a "Swift boat" patrolling the Mekong Delta, the veterans against Kerry have moved to discredit his more obscure claim—made a few times over the years, in interviews and Senate floor speeches—that, on Dec. 24, he took CIA or special ops forces across the border into Cambodia, even while Washington claimed no American troops were there."He is willing to concede that everything else the Swifties said about Kerry was a lie, but he remains desperately hanging onto the Cambodia thing, probably because it's the one accusation that is the most difficult to disprove.And I thought this post was about John McCain, not John Kerry. Is he living in the past?

Thanks, Anon. Here's a clickable link to that Slate article. Not that it will do him any good. He'll just pick some minor point out of it and try to elevate it to the crime of the century.That's his MO, and that's why I gave up trying to reason with him.--The F-Man

Minor point? You mean like not a single shipmate, even those at his side will back up his false claims?

Why is that?

It is you guys that are disregarding Kerry's main point. Kerry has claimed that the epiphany he had that Christmas of 1968 (hell, he even claimed that Nixon was President on that day)was about truthfulness. That event was a life changer for him. How the American people were lied to about troops and himself being in Cambodia illegally.

And why would Kerry never release his military records to the general public like Bush did? What's he trying to hide?

Why hasn't Kerry proven a single allegation by the SBVT wrong? Why hasn't anyone been able to claim the reward?

At what point did Farnsworth say that he was not a Democrat? Why would he bash members of his own party? Even though it appears that he's not a big fan of Hillary Clinton.So do you ever demand that your favorite rightwing sites like Newsmax which you love to cite be fair and balanced and do some equal-time bashing of Republicans?No, I didn't think so. You are a rank HYPOCRITE, sir, and much more of one than you claim Farnsworth is.I think Farnsworth had the right idea when he told you to get your own blog. You can bash the Democrats all you want and I'm certain that Farnsworth won't demand that you give some equal time to bashing your own party, mostly because it wouldn't do any good because you wouldn't do it, because you are a hypcrite.

Thanks and welcome, VV1970, but you're wasting your breath and your bandwidth trying to reason with the guy. He's quick to point out a mote in someone else's eye but unable to see the 2X4 in his own.That's from their "holy" bible, although I don't have the exact citation at hand, but the point is there. Hay-soos himself called out the pharisees, and this jerk is one of the top-drawer pharisees of the blogosphere, but he'll never admit it. Especially not to himself, since it would totally destroy his whole world view.Sad, really.

He obviously isn't interested in true debate. He strikes me more as the type who just wants to screw around espousing some sort of weird agenda in order to get some attention and feel like he is somehow superior. This is not uncommon in the world of electronic social interaction. It seems the anonimity allows people to lash out irrationally at others in a way they cannot in direct human encounters. Mostly this behavior seems assoicated with the socially alienated and those who feel the world has ignored them. You're right, it's sad.

You guys are a blast... lets Bash Bush for not having his kids go to Iraq but lets give a free pass to Bill Clinton for not sending Chelsea to Bosnia. At least Bush got permission from the U.N. to use force. Bill didn't. His was the truly illegal war.

Hey Farnsworth, why don't you check out McCain background to see if he accepted $112,000.00 from Charles Keating who stole the retirement money from old California folks? Why defend a crrok who stole dirty money from the veteran? Why McCain abandoned his wife and Ross Perot had to pay for Carol's hospital fee?

Thanks for the tip, Steve. Since the article is by noted journalist Sydney Schanberg, whom I respect enormously, and since it appeared in a media entity that I also respect, I give it much more credibility than the addled ravings of Ted Sampley.It would appear that Grampaw McCain has much to answer for in his dealings with the POW-MIA issue, but what are the odds that the MSM/SCLM are going to exercise their Fourth Estate rights and go after him?-- The F Man